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Monday, December 17, 2012

{Review} The Future of Us - Jay Asher & Carolyn Mackler

It's 1996, and Josh and Emma have been neighbors their whole lives. They've been best friends almost as long - at least, up until last November, when Josh did something that changed everything. Things have been weird between them ever since, but when Josh's family gets a free AOL CD in the mail,his mom makes him bring it over so that Emma can install it on her new computer. When they sign on, they're automatically logged onto their Facebook pages. But Facebook hasn't been invented yet. And they're looking at themselves fifteen years in the future.

By refreshing their pages, they learn that making different decisions now will affect the outcome of their lives later. And as they grapple with the ups and downs of what their futures hold, they're forced to confront what they're doing right - and wrong - in the present.

I picked this book up for one reason, the pure nostalgia of remembering the late '90s. I occasionally like to relive my youth.

While I thought the plot of the book was a good idea, unfortunately the story never did meet its full potential and kinda just fell flat for me. Now with that in mind I'm not saying I hated the book, but I didn't love it either. It was a pretty quick read for me and for the most part I enjoyed reading it.

Since this was a nostalgic read for me I have to be honest and say most of what I enjoyed was the references to the '90s since I was in my early teens in the late '90s. I love the idea of signing on to AOL and being able to see 15 years into your future via Facebook. Every time Emma got on AOL I kept on having dial up flashback and could hear the modem, that sound haunts me to this day.

What I didn't like was that there was a general lack of character development, everyone was very two dimensional and had no real unique personalities. Everything seemed to be kind of rushed and some plot point were glossed over for some other trivial point which sorta bugged me. I think my biggest pet peeve about The Future of Us was that the end was pretty much predictable, some people don't mind that but it irks me.

All things considered this was for the most part an enjoyable read that was nice way to spend a few hours on.